The Milwaukee Bucks are set for a summer of rebranding, further remaking a franchise that already seems long-removed from the Herb Kohl ownership era that ended just last year.
Under new owners Marc Lasry and Wes Edens, who bought the team from Kohl for $500 million last May, the Bucks have spent the past year in pursuit of a new arena and driving business in areas ranging from ticket sales to sponsorship, all while the team was reversing its recent on-court fortunes as well.
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The Milwaukee Bucks introduced new logos last month; new uniforms will follow in June.
Photo by: NBAE / GETTY IMAGES
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Last month brought the unveiling of new team logos. On June 6, the team plans to unveil new uniforms. Following that will be several statewide marketing efforts and continued development of the Bucks’ first team foundation.
In addition, tied to next month’s uniform unveiling, the Bucks plan a major retail expansion that will include creating 15 Bucks-branded stores within local Name of the Game retail outlets. The team is taking over the operation of two stores at the BMO Harris Bradley Center, as well, with renovation and expansion plans to be completed by the start of next season.
Other merchandise kiosks will be added inside the arena, too.
“It is about still honoring the team’s legacy but putting a new stamp on the bright future,” said Bucks President Peter Feigin.
As for the team’s statewide efforts — what with the Bucks competing in a state that features dominant support for the Green Bay Packers and all things University of Wisconsin — the Bucks plan to conduct an expanded bus tour throughout Wisconsin this summer. Then, this fall, the team for the first time will play a preseason game in Madison, at the Kohl Center.
“We have never leveraged the maniacal culture of the Badgers and we are going full force to embrace the state,” Feigin said.
On the foundation front, Edens and Lasry are creating the Bucks Foundation. Until now, the team has never had its own, specific foundation, with much of the team’s community efforts spread instead over various other local foundations.
Edens and Lasry are banking on all of the new touch points to help secure $250 million in public financing for their desired new $500 million arena complex in downtown Milwaukee. Feigin said he expects to have a tentative financing agreement for the facility completed by the end of May, and there is urgency to get a deal done: Under terms of the team’s sale to Edens and Lasry, the NBA can buy the franchise if construction of a new arena does not begin by late 2017.
“We are very confident with our partners in the state and we are very eager to break ground,” Feigin said. “We just want to sustain the momentum. That is what we care about.”
Until that new arena comes, the team continues to enhance its current home. The Bucks plan to unveil a redesigned playing floor at BMO Harris Bradley Center by the start of the 2015-16 season — following a previous redesign just two years ago — and plan to spend $2 million to upgrade the arena’s club and premium areas. In addition, 140 seats are being added in the first three rows of the arena using previously unused space and a new seating configuration.
Feigin declined to disclose the cost of the team’s rebranding efforts, but all of it comes at the same time the Bucks have gone from having the worst record in the league one year ago (15-67) to improving to 41-41 and making the playoffs this season.
Those additional wins have already turned into gains at the gate. Group sales for next year are up 25 percent this offseason compared with what the team sold all of last season, and the team expects its season-ticket base ultimately will increase 50 percent next season compared with 2014-15.
Over the past seven months, the Bucks also have signed 12 new sponsors and now count around 115 total sponsors. But Feigin knows that the percentage gains are all relative given that last year the Bucks ranked at or near the bottom in most of the NBA’s business metrics.
“It is about a new era both on and off the court,” Feigin said.
